


Fidelis

by amaresu



Category: Travelers (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post-Season/Series 03, canon typical timeline shenanigans, what now?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 06:11:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17038214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaresu/pseuds/amaresu
Summary: He has faith in the Director.





	Fidelis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coltsbane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coltsbane/gifts).



> Many thanks to oree_estelle for the beta.

There’s almost a year between when he arrives and when he’s supposed to die. He knew going back that he would die where Traveler 001 failed to the first time. He has faith in the Director, and he knows that they will eventually save the future. He just has to let the Director know that the Traveler program isn’t working. He also has 11 months to wait and whole swaths of Grant MacLaren’s life he never learned anything about. Either because they weren’t part of the historical record, or because they weren’t relevant when he first came back.

In his head, he can hear Jo’s last condemnation. They’d brought the end sooner rather than later. Iit didn’t matter that it was Faction and not them; they’d changed enough to save the shelter that eventually created the Faction. Trevor had told him once, back when they were first training for the program, about how things had been before the Director. He still wasn’t sure how anyone could want to go back to that.

Jo’s still in his head though, “Maybe we should save ourselves.”

He wasn’t wrong, they had failed miserably the first time, but maybe she was right too. Helios was the first step. Helios and people smart enough to figure out the problem before it became the world ending disaster it was. He writes down what he knows, the math he understands on how to find the asteroid, and gives it to one of the smartest people he can think of in this or any other timelines. 

She’ll probably throw it away, but maybe she’ll look and see and start the world on a path to fixing it. Maybe Jo was right. Things never got better, because they didn’t know things had ever gotten bad. If you didn’t realize you were getting first aid, you’d keep trying to go back into the burning building. 

He has faith in the Director, but perhaps the Director had too much faith in humanity. The Director thought if they could fix the right problems, humanity would self correct none-the-wiser. Maybe they needed to know how close disaster was before they’d stop sticking their fingers in the fire.

There isn’t much else he’s confident in changing. Too much depends on Helios 685. If the asteroid hits, the world goes one way. If it doesn’t, the world goes another. Who knows what other minor changes Traveler teams had caused. His knowledge of the historical record is centuries out of date at this point.

He mistimed it in the end. He was supposed to have enough time to send the email, but not enough to leave the building. He didn’t want to wait for a plane to kill him, didn’t want the chance to second guess his resolve. This was the wait that caused the problems with Traveler 001. Only, it’s fifteen minutes until the plane hits and people are banging on the door. He thought it would take longer to get into the building. It should have taken longer.

He doesn’t hide. That’s the important thing, the thing that differentiates him from Traveler 001. He acknowledges security cameras and smiles in photos. He makes sure he has a cell phone. He does everything he can to show the Director that he’s not trying to steal time he shouldn’t have. 

He has faith in the Director. Especially after the last chance the Director gave them. Even after Protocol Omega, the Director gave them one final chance to try and save the future. He always wondered about the programing behind Protocol Omega. The Director can’t take a life, and yet Omega abandons an entire timeline and billions of people. He almost misses Grace. His faith in the Director is solid, though it had wavered in the years he’d been in the past, so he knows that whatever the Director is planning is the best course for survival. 

Eventually, he accepts that the Director isn’t coming for him. He is being allowed to live in this timeline for some reason. He’s not sure what to do with his life, so far in the past from what he’s known. He has faith though. The Director wouldn’t let him live without a reason. 

There’s no Protocol 5 anymore. Not the one he was used to, the one he still wishes he could have. He had truly loved Kat. But she was right, he wasn’t the man she’d fallen in love with and now she’d never met the real Grant MacLaren. Maybe things would work out with John, maybe they wouldn’t, but he wouldn’t cause Kat anymore pain. 

He misses his team. 

Grant’s savings won’t last forever and he has to figure out what to do with the life he never expected to have. Part of him still clings to Protocol 3, so he doesn’t join the FBI. He doesn’t buy a gun. He posts signs at the library offering translation services in a number of local languages. 

It’s a small and simple life, nothing like his life with Kat. Still miles away from the future he grew up in. He likes it for both those reasons. He doesn’t check the deep web or back channels that they’d set up last time. He’s not sure if he wants to find something or not.

He has faith in the Director, but he’s not sure if he’s been forgotten or been given a reward. Maybe no one else had ever been sent back. Maybe the Director came up with a new plan. Maybe the future was fixed and the Director was never made. The possibilities are endless and some nights he lays in bed and cycles through them.

He’s given up waiting for something from the Director when the knock comes on his door. He’s translating some paperwork for the local corner store when it comes, he walks to the door with a pencil held between his teeth, to find a child standing outside.

“Traveler 001A proceed to the following coordinates.” It’s been years since he’s had a Messenger, but he still mentally logs the coordinates and ushers the girl off to her own apartment. Noting that nothing will ever make it not creepy.

The go bag is hidden inside a false panel in the closet. He doesn’t have any firearms or advanced tech, but he has a first aid kit put together by an EMT who lives down the hall, several burner phones, and an assortment of other odds and ends that might be useful from hospital scrubs to lock picks. He barely remembers to lock the door behind him as he hauls everything down to his car.

Driving to the coordinates he feels the old spike of adrenaline and can’t help but smile. It was nice sitting on the sidelines, but it’s nice to get back in the fight. He’ll give what help he can and hopefully get back into whatever the current plan is. The future may be the same as the one he left or it may be completely different. Only time will tell. 

 

He has faith in the Director. He has faith in humanity to fix the future.

**Author's Note:**

> The end of season three fucked me up. How about you?


End file.
